Ousted One Nation candidate may run as independent

by jgould

Joel Gould
Journalist
Joel is a journalist with 20 years of experience and since February, 2011 he has been the late reporter at The Queensland Times. Joel specialises in longer features and as the late reporter he chases all the breaking stories that unfold in the evenings. A die hard rugby league fan, Joel has been pushing hard for the Western Corridor bid to be admitted into the NRL.

SHAN Ju Lin has not ruled running in the seat of Bundamba as an independent after being dumped from One Nation for homophobic remarks.

Ms Lin, the president of the World Harmony Society, was disendorsed as One Nation's candidate for Bundamba after a Facebook post where she said gay people "should be treated as patients" and were involved in "abnormal sexual behaviour".

She made her comments about Bundamba in an interview with 106.3 Triple M Coffs Harbour's Michael Moffett.

In the interview Ms Lin made no apology for her remarks and stood by them in context, was still claiming James Ashby was running One Nation despite Pauline Hanson making it clear in an interview that she had sacked Ms Lin herself and that chief of staff Mr Ashby was just the messenger.

Ms Lin said she had "been denied natural justice" in the way she was fired by Mr Ashby.

Mr Moffett asked Ms Lin whether she would run in Bundamba as an independent.

"I haven't had time to think about it...but there is a lot of support and encouragement coming through in my Facebook messages...encouraging me to stand no matter what," she said.

"I'll just wait and see."

Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale has said the council will not be providing the $5000 it had allocated in funding to the World Harmony Society to run the World Harmony Festival at Springfield on March 11 in light of Ms Lin's remarks.

Ms Lin told Mr Moffett it was "totally inappropriate that World Harmony Society has been brought into this as it is not related to my One Nation candidacy".

"The Society is completely separate and is not political," she said.

Mr Moffett pointed out that one of the aspects of the society was to work against discrimination and injustice and asked if her comments were discriminatory, which she failed to address with her answer.

Ms Lin confirmed she'd had no conversations with Cr Pisasale about the World Harmony Festival.